Comments on: Flickr Permanently Deletes Yet Another User Without Warning

By: Bob van Ooik

Bob van Ooik — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 16:25:47 +0000

There is actually a very funny thing about this commercial purpose thing. Flickr has now this agreement with Getty… once you are selected by Getty basically all your work has now a commercial purpose

The way Flickr is deleting and restricting accounts is going in the wrong direction. A couple of my friends have gotten into trouble with them too. And it is really their way of doing that will hurt them the most. See here for instance: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tingreen/4151949878/

By: Bob van Ooik

Bob van Ooik — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 11:25:47 +0000

By: staffing321

staffing321 — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 01:09:07 +0000

Dale's not of being a PRO account and how many accounts he's brought in was especially notable to me - I signed up for a PRO account after using a free one and speaking with Dale about it one day.

Find more jobs: http://www.staffingpower.com/

By: Diane Sundberg

Diane Sundberg — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 17:29:15 +0000

This makes me very happy I never paid for a pro acct with Flickr, even when you pay for sites/ areas on the web you’d best make sure you read all of the fine print & read every update if they tell you about it.
Most “free” sites outside Google will have some hook in there somewhere & “you’re” lack of knowing about it is no excuse as they see it. Buyer beware I guess best sums it up.

I’ll warn my camera club about this though as I think some of them get paid for their pics & may get caught in the crosshairs.

By: Scott Webb

Scott Webb — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 23:22:50 +0000

I am way too small to be on their radar, but I have posted up a few logos, and link to my website. Flickr is no follow so what’s the harm? Are people putting up the price of some photographs or it’s a bit confusing how they are saying its for commercial. I understand that if a realtor is putting up their house listing that’s a bit off, but I like the idea of marketing.

Guess I better not have specific links to my store website once it’s up!

By: Ed Bisquera

Ed Bisquera — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 05:05:05 +0000

Wow, what’s up with Flickr not responding better to this issue? Perhaps they should take a lesson from Alaska Air and improve their customer service!

I too have explored more use of Flickr directly because of Dale and the fact the he and his brother ar avid pro/hobby photographers (that distinction shouldn’t violate Flickr’s TOS, IMHO) make me think that Flickr staff is staffed with former INS agents or border patrol, who are overweight, power-hungry buffoons and just are deleting accounts without any word, like @reockstar’s account and others.

I’m guessing they don’t use Google alerts, since they’re part of the Yahoo family of companies? (Is there such a thing as a Yahoo alert?!)

They need to just restrict access and allow some time for a warning to be issued. How hard would that be to do?

Good God, even if you screwed up on eBay, for example, you had time to deal with your error (whether intentional or not).

Is there anyone listening at Flickr?? knock, knock, anyone home at customer service??

Regarding the “gray area” issue of commercial activity on one’s photostream and how it breaks TOS, can someone explain to me, like I’m in 5th grade, exactly what can or can’t be done??

By: Melina Tomson

Melina Tomson — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 03:41:06 +0000

Dale and I were tweeting about this because we both use Flickr for personal use a lot. I take a lot of nature photos and store them on Flickr. Neither of us want to see our personal stuff just deleted like that.

I can understand not having real estate listings on Flickr and photos of catalog items and such. But as a real estate agent that loves architecture, I’m always taking shots of houses and buildings. Does that make me commercial because I say I’m a real estate agent on there and I have photos of houses (not my personal listings).

Hopefully Flickr has google alerts and is getting an earful on this issue. I can see with pornographic and offensive material deleting it immediately when found. I totally understand enforcing the TOS, but why not give someone 24 hours to remove the offending images. I just think that is bad customer service and what’s the point of having a service if your customers leave in droves because they are worried about being deleted?

By: Aaron

Aaron — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 00:26:14 +0000

The accounts that are being deleted are Flickr Pro accounts. According to Flickr’s terms of service, commercial activity is not allowed with any of their accounts, including Pro accounts.

By: Nick Bostic

Nick Bostic — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 23:53:51 +0000

I had been using Flickr mostly as a private offsite backup of my pictures, with the occasional use on my someday-commercial blog site and would hate to have all of my photos deleted without warning due to a photo of mine I made public to use on my own site. Thanks for the heads up and my Eye-Fi cards are now switched over to my SmugMug account as well.

By: Photo-John

Photo-John — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 21:44:51 +0000

I’ve gotten a warning for the PhotographyREVIEW account because it links to reviews on PhotographyREVIEW.com. But it’s not a pro account. I’ve never had a warning on my Photo-John account, but it’s a pro account. Are pro accounts allowed “commercial” activity? I mean, pro is pro, right? If a pro account isn’t allowed any “commercial” activity, then I don’t see the point. And yes, if a pro account can get deleted for “commercial” activity, it would definitely change the way I use Flickr.